Realization
by Nik1627
Summary: What if Peeta had died in the 74th hunger games and Katniss had come out as the sole victor! Would she have realized her feelings for Peeta or not! One-Shot.


**AN: Hey everyone, this is a new idea that popped up into my mind recently. Hope you like it! Please excuse me for my grammatical errors.**

 **Disclaimer: I am totally not Suzanne Collins, though I wish I was, and so I do not own the Hunger Games series.**

Summary: What if Peeta had died in the 74th hunger games and Katniss had come out as the sole victor?! Would she have realized her feelings for Peeta or not?!

 **REALIZATION**

It was a dull gray morning four months after the seventy-fourth hunger games had ended. Four full months had passed by. Still, everything in her surroundings felt plain and dull. Just a plain shade of black and white.

Though she had won the seventy-fourth hunger games and had now moved into the victors village along with her family with lifetime required amount of money, her life felt hollow. The nightmares of the games consumed her into them every night. But that didn't mean that her mornings were peaceful because the memories of the games haunted her at all times. Her life had become a mess. She couldn't even hold her bow for hunting 'cause whenever she tried, the memories of the death of the innocent in the unfair and cruel games come back to her.

Once, a week after her return from the Capitol as third victor (second alive) in District 12, she went to the woods to hunt with Gale on a Sunday morning. She wanted to keep her mind off the incidents that had occurred in the past month and a half. She took her stance along with Gale and aimed at a deer. But when she pulled the string and was about to strike, the deer's face suddenly morphed into first, the face of Marvel, a boy from District 1, and then to the other person she had shot. Seeing this, she started screaming and broke down into tears. Finally after quite some time, with Gale's help, she was able to control herself and she just left for her house.

After that day, she was so scared that the same thing will happen. so she never went to hunt again. Though she avoided the woods, she still couldn't avoid the faces that always appeared in front of her.

Prim, her sister was probably the only one around whom she was able to keep a bit of her sanity and distract herself from her nightmares for some time. So everyday, after school, Prim would try to keep her mind off things by either asking her for help or just by telling her what happened in school that day since Katniss didn't even have to go to school. Even then, some times, Katniss would drift off into her memories of the face that she not never stop thinking about.

That one single face. It would make her go crazy with guilt one day at this rate. But she couldn't help feeling guilty. Though people have been telling her that it was a necessary act for survival, she still can never remove the guilt from her mind. Even now, four months after the incident, her mind keeps thinking ''if there was any other was so as to save both herself and him in the games and both could have returned to District 12 happily instead of just her'.

These thoughts crept into her mind all the time though she tried to shut the out along with his face. The face of 'the boy with the bread', 'the boy who saved her life so many times in so many ways', 'the boy whom she could never repay back and balance her debt'. Peeta Malark. Her District partner in the 74th Hunger Games. The boy who announced his love for her in front of the whole of Panem. The boy who protected her even in the games instead of trying to save himself. And finally, the boy who died in the hands of the girl he had loved since he was five.

She could never forgive herself for killing him even if it was just her instincts of self-defense. After the announcement of the rule of only one victor being allowed to live was revoked, when Peeta started moving slowly towards Katniss, he acted like he was going to take out his knife and attack Katniss, her instincts of self defense over took her and she shot her last arrow directly into his chest even before she realized what was happening around her. She immediately ran to where he was lying-down and breathing raggedly. She tried to apologize to him for what she had done though Peeta was trying to convince her that it was for the best. It felt like she was the one nearing death as he was trying to console her and not the other way around. Right before accepting his death, Peeta, like Rue, asked her to sing for him. As she sang the Valley Song for him, he smiled and closed his eyes entering the deep slumber of afterlife. No sooner had she finished the song than she held Peeta's body tightly and cried into him for what felt like hours. She neither heard the hovercraft collect Cato's body nor the announcement of her being called the victor of the 74th Hunger Games. The only thing that brought her back into reality was when the official guards and nurses came to collect her and Peeta's body from the arena. On being separated from Peeta's body, she had screamed and thrashed until someone had come and sedated her. She had to be sedated for long time, before she finally accepted fate and calmed down.

The things and ceremonies after that passed by in a blur for her. She felt like a robot until she finally returned back to twelve, her home, and met her family. Though many people in twelve, most of the merchants, didn't welcome her back nicely and held her guilty for Peeta's death, she still couldn't deny the fact that it felt far better staying there around the people she knew. Though she could never again in her life look at the Bakers' family without feeling the guilt and the pain, she knew that she would, till her death, ask for their forgiveness and be in their debt for whatever Peeta did.

Most of all, even if Peeta's face haunted her, she would try to always remember his face, his sweet smile, the love her showed for her though both his eyes and his acts of protection. Though she knew Peeta for a very short time, she knew that he wanted her to be back for her family and for her to stay happy in her eyes.

Thinking of these facts that she knew about Peeta, tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn't hide a truth like this forever and believe in the falsity that she has created to deny the fact.

Therefore she decided to finally accept the truth. Otherwise, she would go crazy. So her decided. Though her eyes were blurred she could still see Peeta standing in front of her and smiling at her and telling her to be happy. At this sight, she knew it. She couldn't deny it any more. She told herself the truth a hundred times until she accepted, bringing a wide smile on her face and a tear of both happiness and sadness in her eyes and the beautiful memory of his eyes staring in to hers'. She had now accepted and knew the reality.

She loved Peeta Mallark.

~THE END~

 **AN: Don't forget to review. They will encourage me to write more.**


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